“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” -Thomas Jefferson

The Working Families Party

THE WORKING FAMILIES PARTY

May 27, 2011

The Following article originated at and is taken from DiscoverTheNetworks.com

Currently composed of some 30,000 members, the Working Families Party (WFP) is a front group for ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). WFP functions as a political party in New York State and Connecticut, promoting ACORN-friendly candidates. Unlike conventional political parties, WFP charges its members dues — about $60 per year — a policy characteristic of ACORN and its affiliates.

According to the party’s website, WFP is a coalition founded jointly by ACORN, the Communications Workers of America, and the United Automobile Workers. However, ACORN clearly dominates the coalition. New York ACORN leader Steven Kest was the moving force in forming the party, and WFP headquarters are located at the same address as ACORN’s national office, at 88 Third Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.

An outgrowth of the socialist New Party, WFP was created in 1998. According to a 2000 article by the Associated Press, its objective was (and still is) to “help push the Democratic Party toward the left.” In pursuit of this goal, WFP runs radical candidates in state and local elections. Generally, WFP candidates conceal their extremism beneath a veneer of populist rhetoric, promoting bread-and-butter issues designed to appeal to union workers and other blue-collar voters, Republican and Democrat alike.

In order to gain “permanent” status on the New York state ballot, WFP needed to win a minimum of 50,000 votes in at least one political election. The fledgling party accomplished this in 1998 by cross-endorsing Democratic City Council Speaker Peter Vallone in that year’s election gubernatorial race. Vallone lost the election, but his moderate Democrat politics — which were utterly incompatible with ACORN’s doctrine of militant class struggle — helped to lure 51,325 unwitting New Yorkers into voting on the WFT line, thus qualifying the party for ballot status.

Having established itself in this surreptitious manner as a legitimate political party, WSP began seeking concessions from the major-party candidates, gaining leverage through its power to grant or deny its endorsements. Shortly after the party’s launch in 1998, co-founder Bob Master said, “We are very clear that we are not abandoning the Democratic Party.” As another WFP organizer put it, the Working Families Party sought to move the Democrats “toward the progressive end of the spectrum.”